Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. That was leading to the second question I have for the Senator from New York; that is, another meeting took place on the 13th of January 1 week later with somewhat the same participants. At that time they were asked again. Where are the guarantors that are going to join us? At that point, it was not $20 billion, it was $40 billion. I have been fearful, since they had started to come for concurrence from both Houses of Congress and then went ahead and did it by Executive order that perhaps this $20 billion we keep hearing about is in fact closer to $40 billion, part one of the question; part two, I picked up a paper going through Dallas--I believe it was a newspaper in Mexico-- characterizing this amount of money as not loan guarantees but foreign aid.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Wyoming for yielding this time on this very significant subject.

Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I have been listening attentively to the discussion that has been taking place in the Chamber on the line-item veto. I think there may be some misconceptions floating around as to who really wants a line-item veto and how much they want it, and who perhaps does not want it. I have heard over and over again, as I was sitting in the chair where the President pro tempore is presiding, Senators standing up and saying, ``Our President, President Clinton, wants the line-item veto. We need to give it to him so he will have the ability to veto those items and spending bills that are out of line.'' I suggest that, even though the President has made the statement, ``I want a strong line-item veto bill and I want it very soon,'' that that is the same thing he said about a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. And we were to find out later that he was the one who led the opposition to the balanced budget amendment on the telephone, lobbying those Democrats who had previously committed themselves to a balanced budget amendment. I suggest this may even be happening today. The reason I say that, Mr. President, is not to make an attack on President Clinton or to question anything that he has said. But the idea of the President having the ability to use this new device, a line-item veto, to take top spending things, pork items, out of a bill does not seem to make any sense to me. If you look back to 1993, when President Clinton came up with his budget and tax hike, it was characterized by many people, including Patrick Moynihan, as the largest tax increase in the history of public finance or anyplace in the world. It was a $267 billion tax increase, with all kinds of spending increases. The taxes went back retroactively to January of 1993, and that is the first time I can remember that happening. It increased the top rate to 36 percent. Then it went in and started taxing Social Security recipients. Now, this was kind of interesting because in arguing against the balanced budget amendment, they were trying to use Social Security as the argument against the balanced budget amendment when in fact this President in 1993 increased dramatically the taxes on Americans' Social Security. Of course, it was not a good argument anyway, because if we do not do something to get the budget under control, item veto or anything else, there will not be anything left in Social Security anyway in another 15 years. In that same bill, he increased the taxes on gasoline by 4.3 percent. He increased the corporate rate up to 36 percent. And in spite of all the increases in taxes, 267 billion dollars' worth, it would increase the debt by $1.4 trillion over a 5-year period. My question would be: Would he have line-item vetoed any of those items? No, because this was his bill. Then he came out with the stimulus plan. This was a $16.3 billion increase in spending, with all kinds of pork. I was very happy that a filibuster, led by Senator Dole, was successful in giving him his first defeat. But if you look at what he tried to pass--a $1 billion summer jobs program; $1.1 billion for a variety of items, such as AIDS and food distribution; a $1.2 billion subsidy to Amtrak and to subways and light rail packages that are located in the districts of certain friendly people, I suspect; a $2.5 billion pork-barrel bunch of items--swimming pools, parking lots, ice rink warming huts, an Alpine ski lift, and other pork-barrel projects. Now, the question is, if this had passed and he had the ability to use a line-item veto, would he have done it? No. The answer is a resounding no, because this is what he was promoting. So, I think that we need to look at this in a little different context, and that is, we are going to have one of two different kinds of Presidents of the United States. Either we are going to have one like President Clinton, who is the biggest tax-and-spend President in contemporary history, or in a couple of years, when this agony is over, we are going to have a conservative President. Now, regardless of whether we have a Democrat or Republican, or a conservative or liberal, a line-item veto is very helpful to us. Because if it is a liberal President who is for taxing and spending, such as our current President, then this takes away his excuse for signing big spending bills. What have we seen historically in this country? We have seen bills coming in with 25, 30, or 50 items unrelated to each other, all this pork, such as that which was included in his stimulus bill, and he says-- I have to sign it, because if I do not, we will not get the veterans' cost-of-living adjustments or we will not get a Social Security adjustment, or something that people want, and that is good and is consistent with the philosophy and the desires of a majority serving in both bodies. So this would take away the ability of someone who is trying to use that for an excuse to pass pork-barrel legislation so that he could not do it, and would make him accountable. Let us say we have a conservative President. It would work equally well there, because a conservative President could go through and he could line out this pork stuff and could send it back for an override. I will conclude by saying that we often overlook the real reason for a line-item veto. It is not that it is going to be the cure-all. It is not going to balance the budget. It is not going to do all these things. It is a vehicle to be helpful. However, what it does do is make the President and the House and the Senate accountable. If we have a liberal President or a conservative President, that President will have to be accountable for his acts, because with this ability to line out items and veto specific items, a President can no longer say that he has to do it. Then the glorious thing about it is it goes to the House or the Senate and there is a veto attempt to override, and that way we have to go on record--Members of the House, Members of the Senate, and the President. None of those now have to be accountable to the people back home. I have often said, none of this silliness, the foolishness that goes on in Washington would happen if people were held accountable for their acts. That is exactly what the line-item veto would do. So regardless of what kind of President we have, regardless of the philosophy of Congress, a line-item veto does make Congress accountable. And that serves the American people best. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have a couple of comments I wanted to make, a couple in response to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota and also one concerning line-item veto. We heard from the Senator from Indiana many of the good things that would come in terms of accountability with the adoption of a responsible line-item veto for our procedure here in this Chamber. I suggest he may have overlooked one thing. It is true the President of the United States, whether he is a Republican or a Democrat, whether he is a liberal or a conservative, would be held accountable for those things in which he really believed. If you look at a spending bill that goes to the desk of the President of the United States that has 100 unrelated spending matters in it, there is pork for all the favorites, yet there may be something in there for veterans benefits. So he will stand up and say, ``I am against all this pork but I have to sign it because I am for the benefits for veterans. They are well deserved.'' If we had line-item veto, he can support those things he proclaims to support and reject those that he proclaims to reject. But the one thing that was not articulated by the Senator from Indiana is it also makes us more accountable, in that once you veto one item and that item is sent back to the Senate and to the House, it forces those Members to get on record so they can no longer answer their mail saying I was really against all those pork projects but I had to do it for the veterans. So I think the name of the line-item veto is really accountability for the President as well as for the Members of the House and the Members of the Senate. As far as the families first bill, I would only like to suggest, if one heard the complete presentation on this bill, he would see this could be accomplished and we could balance the budget by the year 2002, have the tax relief for the families, and at the same time have a slight growth in Government--not cut any Government programs. I think it was well articulated by the Senator from Minnesota that, if we had a 2-percent growth cap, this would accomplish what we are trying to accomplish. But when you look at some of the tax cuts that are going to be suggested in the families first bill, you have to go beyond the economics of it and look at the social aspects. It is a fact today that a family of four making $25,000, living together happily--if that family, the man and wife, should get a divorce and continue to cohabit out of wedlock, and each become the head of a household, they can increase their take-home pay by 13 percent. That is the issue we are trying to get to. The unfairness of the earnings test for our senior citizens in America--I have had people come to me in town hall meetings and say, ``For the first time in my life I have been forced to be dishonest because I am not reporting income that I am making, because I do not think it is right for the Government to come along and say I cannot have the Social Security I was entitled to because I want to remain productive after age 65.'' So I hope when people are considering the families first bill and the various tax cuts on the American family--all ages of that family--that they consider there are aspects other than economic aspects to be considered. Since the 1960's we have gotten ourselves into a position where families are no longer important, no longer relevant, no longer significant. This is what the revolution of November 8 was all about. We are going to reverse that. I yield my time.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 5 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the distinguished Senator from Idaho for yielding. Mr. President, I have been most interested in what I think is our first major success in both Chambers. And certainly it is due to the perseverance of the Senator from Idaho that we are where we are today. I watched with interest what is happening in the House and, of course, what is happening over here. I think it is so significant because this symbolizes what I think is one of the products of the revolution that took place on November 8. I have often joked around with many Members of both bodies in Washington. I said, ``If you want to know what a real tough job it is to become a mayor in a major city, there is no hiding place there. If they do not like you, they trash you and they throw it in your front yard.'' Of all the problems--and even though there are people serving in this body, distinguished Senators, who have had distinguished careers, including being mayor of major cities such as the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, and many of us may disagree philosophically on certain subjects, but if you were to ask any city official, any mayor, any city commissioner, city council member in America what the most serious problem is, they will not say, as you might expect, the crime problem or the welfare problem or other problems like that. They would say it is unfunded mandates. I had the honor of serving as mayor for three terms in the city of Tulsa, OK, with a half-million people. There are so many aspects of unfunded mandates that people do not talk about because sometimes it is politically sensitive to talk about it, such as the Davis-Bacon Act and how that affects what we do with capital improvements in many of our large cities. I can remember when I became mayor of the city of Tulsa, even though I was conservative it was very uncomfortable to do this. I had to pass a 1-cent sales tax increase for capital improvement because our city had been neglected in its infrastructure. Unfortunately, it is a political reality. Until you can visibly see the problems, you do not really do anything about it. So we passed it. We calculated afterward that, if we had not had to comply with the Davis-Bacon Act, the taxpayers would have benefited so much more than they did. Without the Davis-Bacon Act, we could have produced 17 percent more in capital improvements for the citizens of Tulsa. Keep in mind this is all totally funded within the city with a 1-cent sales tax increase--6 more miles of roads and streets within one city, Tulsa, OK; 34 more miles of water and sewer lines. And we could have hired--this is simply the labor issue that you hear so much about--we could have hired 500 more people during that timeframe. At that time our unemployment was high. It was something that we needed. So it was one of those deals where no one would have been punished by our successfully not having to serve under the mandates of the Davis-Bacon Act. A lot of us in Oklahoma put the pencil to these things so that we would know how many dollars it saved. The motor-voter law that came in is going to cost about $1 million a year. We are still working with that right now. That was something that came in that sounded very good when it surfaced. A lot of the authorities were certainly well meaning. But it was a very expensive thing for the people of Oklahoma. We went and looked at some of the things that happened in the city. Certainly we all know or are sensitive today to the League of Cities which is having their annual meeting here in Washington. In one city, Oklahoma City, the compliance with storm water management and the Clean Water Act, in Oklahoma City alone it is estimated to be $2.7 million. The transportation regulations, which is the metric conversion, some of their anticipated fees are in excess of $2 million over the next 5 years. Land use regulations--that is the recycling and landfill requirements that have come--$2.5 million; the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act is somewhere in the millions. We cannot even put the pencil to that. In my city of Tulsa, OK, the other large city in Oklahoma, the Clean Water Act compliance was $10 million. The Safe Drinking Water Act was $16 million. The solid waste regulations, $700,000. And the lead-based paint, because it is a unique industry which we have there, it will cost in excess of $1 million. But when you look at the smaller communities like Broken Arrow, OK, the Clean Water Act, the storm water regulations were $100,000; the safe drinking water regulations were $40,000. This is a small community that has a very difficult time making ends meet. Yet, they look at these and they wonder why is it that we in Washington somehow have this infinite wisdom that we know what is better for them and we are willing to mandate things for them to do. Yet, we are not going to fund it. I think if we face the reality and the truth, Mr. President, I suggest that it is because people in Washington, after being here for a while, cannot resist the insatiable appetite to spend money we do not have. One tricky way of doing that is to take credit for something politically at home in terms of the environment or something that we are needing to do that generally the people want and turn around and cause the people at home to pay for it. I think we should look at this in another way, also. That is, what is going to happen with the frustration around the country if we do not do this? I was heartened the other day to see what is happening in Catron County, NM. In the frustration of dealing with the U.S. Forest Service, they enacted the U.S. Constitution as a county ordinance and put the Federal officials on notice to show up at the county supervisors meeting to get permission to impose future mandates. I think we are looking at something here that either we do, or it is going to be done for us. I have never been prouder of an organization that is able to come in on both the House and Senate side and recognize that this is not a Republican program, this is not a Democratic program, this is not a conservative or liberal program; this is something that everyone is for if they are really for getting the maximum out of the tax dollars that are paid. So, again, let me throw all the accolades I can on the distinguished Senator from Idaho, who has been so effective in getting this through. Thank you on behalf of all America. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have been very disturbed during the debate on the defense supplemental appropriations. I just wanted to make a couple of comments not directly addressing the Kassebaum amendment but the appropriations itself. I really believe this is one of the few times that I can stand here and say I do not know for sure how I am going to vote on this. I am a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. When I was in the House of Representatives, I was a member of the House Armed Services Committee. I find that we are in a way endorsing what I refer to as a flawed foreign policy when we come up in our forces to have supplemental appropriations to pay for various maneuvers and various missions that our military has pursued while we clearly disagree with those. As an example, I would suggest that, if the President had come to Congress, or to the Senate, and said is it going to cost $17 million to send troops to Rwanda, we probably would say ``no'' and we would not have to incur these costs. The same thing would be true in Somalia--recognizing that in Somalia we originally sent them in December, under a previous administration, however. I think they were sent over for a humanitarian mission not to exceed--I believe it was--90 days initially. Then after that, each quarter we would have resolutions in order to try to bring the troops back home. That ended up costing $17 million. If the President had come to Congress and asked Congress to appropriate $312 million to send troops to Bosnia without a well- defined mission there, certainly not having anything to do with our Nation's events, without having anything to do with our Nation's security, I suggest we would have said ``no.'' The same thing is true; $367 million to Cuba, and then there is Haiti. This appropriation is going to have $595 million to support what nobody really knows we are doing in Haiti. I can assure you, Mr. President, that if the President had come to Congress and said we are going to ask you for $595 million so we can send troops into Haiti to help them with problems they are having, it would have been rejected. So here we come along later and are forced to do it. I hesitated in voting against it, Mr. President, because it is not the military's fault. It is not their policy. They did not decide to go into Haiti. It was not their idea to go to Somalia, Bosnia, or Rwanda. If we do not do this, they are going to be forced into taking it out of their personnel accounts, their operation accounts, R&D accounts. And there are no spare dollars right now in any of those accounts. In fact, we are operating under a budget in this fiscal year that is comparable to the budget we had in 1980 when we could not afford spare parts. So I have sat in these meetings and talked to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Chief of Staff in the various services. I listened to them about the problems they have right now with their budget, in trying to keep America strong. I cannot conscientiously say take it out of our R&D budget just because I disagreed with the missions for which this money is being spent. So, Mr. President, I wanted to get on record that I am very disturbed with the system. I hope we can establish some type of a system where those of us who are going to be asked to appropriate the money to pay for these missions will have some voice in making the decisions as to what we are doing with our armed services. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I would say I appreciate the compliment, to the Senator from West Virginia, because this is the first time since I have reached the age of 60 I have been called wet behind the ears.

Mr. INHOFE. One more comment. It was not my intention to use so much of the Senator's time. I can only say, I am going to catch a plane. I am going back to Oklahoma where real people are, where the people spoke loudly and clearly in the November 8 election when they said: We want to downsize the scope of Government; we do not want to have Government involved in our lives to the degree that Government now is involved. You and I probably will disagree philosophically with the role of Government. But the bottom line is, and I say it one last time, we have demonstrated we cannot do it, that either we cannot or will not do it. I have not given up. I would like to serve notice to everyone in this Chamber, I believe we will get that one additional vote because the people are now identifying what is going on in this country and they are going to be heard. I have the utmost respect for the Senator from West Virginia, but I suggest if you take a trip back to West Virginia, you will hear the same thing there. Thank you.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. INHOFE. One last comment before I leave.

Mr. INHOFE. I will grant the Senator that on occasion Presidents have left their philosophy feeling they could not get a budget passed and have gone to Congress such as was the case with President Bush at the famous meeting out at Andrews Air Force Base where he decided to go ahead and agree to a tax increase. I think now in retrospect, and I think he believes the same thing, that was a mistake. Before I catch a plane, I have one other area the Senator mentioned I feel compelled to address which is the issue of grandchildren. The Senator might remember here a few weeks ago--it seems as if we have been addressing this subject now for quite a few weeks--I had occasion to give a talk over here for about an hour and 10 minutes with the picture of two beautiful children behind me, and those two children were my grandchildren. If we are to look at this in a compassionate way, I think that should be the driving force for our actions today because virtually everyone who has made any kind of a prediction, CBO included, has said that if we do not change from the way we have been doing business for the last 10 years and the last 40 years, if you project that forward, someone who is born today such as my two grandchildren, who are less than 2 years old, will have to pay 82 percent of their lifetime income in taxes. Now, the distinguished Senator advocates increases in taxes. I believe, and I believe the people who voted in the election on November 8 believe, that we can do it without increasing taxes but cutting the size of Government. I used two charts here in the Chamber to show that those individuals who were opposing the balanced budget amendment were also the same ones who historically on the record are the biggest taxers and spenders in Congress, in both Houses. And also I showed on a chart that those individuals who lost the election, the 66 House Members that are not here after the November 8 election, and the eight Senators who either retired or are not here for one reason or another, all of them had a National Taxpayers Union rating of D or F. That is the universally accepted rating for those people who tax and spend. And all of them had voted for the 1993 stimulus bill, which was the largest spending increase, and the 1993 tax increase, which was the largest tax increase. Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.

Mr. INHOFE. I am sure that he will see that it is the constitutional responsibility of Congress to develop the budget, to pass the budget on to the President. In 1980, the total revenues that were derived from the income taxes amounted to $244 billion. In 1990, 10 years later, the total revenues that were derived were $466 billion. In that interim period, in the 1980's came the largest marginal tax reductions, as the Senator has already mentioned, that we probably have had in any 10-year period in this Nation's history. The maximum rate then went down from 70 percent to 28 percent. We had some help as far as capital gains taxes are concerned. And yet during that time we actually increased the revenue from those sources. The fact is that for each 1-percent increase in economic activity we increase revenues by $24 billion. And if we can increase economic activity, we can increase revenues. What has been suggested by many of the conservative think tanks using the CBO's projections is that we can balance the budget without cutting any programs. We can balance the budget without reducing any programs. The 2-percent-growth concept which we have already talked about, the Senator and I have, on the floor of this body, is one that would actually bring the budget into balance in approximately 8 years and not reduce one Government program; without a tax increase.

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator will read the Constitution which he has in his pocket there and very available to him----

Mr. INHOFE. I wanted to address this subject of the tax increase that you seem to be advocating at this time. There is a great misunderstanding about tax increases. When you look at what our problem is today, I offer a very friendly alternative to your philosophy, and that is, our problems are not that we are taxed too little, we are spending too much. When you talk about a tax reduction that has been offered, you are also talking about spending reductions that are going to be offered at the same time. I would like to suggest also that perhaps you share the philosophy of the chief financial adviser to the President, Laura Tyson, when she said that there is no relationship between the level of taxation and economic activity, and herein is the problem that we are having in communicating within this body and with the administration. You are talking about the tax cuts during the eighties, during the Reagan years and the Bush years, keeping in mind just a few of those years did we have even control of one of the Houses, so it took both Houses to do it. In 1980, the total revenues----

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield further?

Mr. INHOFE. No, not this mayor. I was a mayor when you were majority leader.

Mr. INHOFE. I served as mayor of a major city, the city of Tulsa, and we have those constraints beyond which we cannot spend. It has worked very effectively. I did not get to the point I wanted to.

Mr. INHOFE. The cities pay it back. I served in the State legislature.

Mr. INHOFE. They borrow money, but the difference is the States pay the money back.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield on that?

Mr. INHOFE. Some 48 States--in 1941 in Oklahoma, we were incapable of doing it. We passed a balanced budget amendment and it worked. I want to address one other thing that you mentioned and----

Mr. INHOFE. Year after year after year.

Mr. INHOFE. We have demonstrated we are incapable of doing it----